Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

Viewpoints: Health Care Opponent’s Legal Strategy; The Challenge For This Open Enrollment

The Wall Street Journal: Carvin's ObamaCare Tour De Force
In 2011 after the first appeals circuit struck down the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, the White House asked the Supreme Court to take the case as soon as possible and "put these challenges to rest." There was no value in waiting on the merits to percolate in other courts, liberals argued then, given the grave practical consequences for this landmark social legislation. So observes Jones Day attorney Michael Carvin in his corker of a reply brief asking the High Court to accept King v. Burwell, an equally consequential challenge to ObamaCare. Yet now the White House is asking the Court to wait, and wait, and wait, which Mr. Carvin calls "irresponsible" and "out of touch with reality." The 12-page document is a master class in legal persuasion and deserves more readers (10/20).

The New York Times' The Upshot: Next Open Enrollment For A.C.A. Approaches, But Few Notice
This year, the big challenge for officials behind the Affordable Care Act may not be making the website work but getting customers to come shop in the first place. A new survey of people without health insurance highlights the challenge: It found that 89 percent of the people surveyed were unaware that open enrollment begins in November, or any time soon (Margot Sanger-Katz, 10/21).

The New York Times' Letter From America: Obamacare Losing Power As A Campaign Weapon
Then there was the disastrous rollout in late 2013, caused by computer glitches that cost the program precious credibility at a critical time. That's what most people remember — which might explain why some Republicans seeking election next month are still running attack ads against the health care law. The problem with that narrative is the program is proving to be a success, and yet the health care initiative — arguably the most significant piece of social legislation in decades — is no longer a prominent part of the Democratic agenda (Celestine Bohlen, 10/20).

Los Angeles Times: To Govs. Jindal, Perry: A Travel Ban Won't Save Lives, But Medicaid Will
For Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Rick Perry of Texas, two Republican governors thinking about running for president, the Ebola virus has been a heaven-sent opportunity. It has allowed them to swank around as protectors of public health, distracting their audiences from policies they've implemented that really are threats to public health (Michael Hiltzik, 10/20).

The New Orleans' Times-Picayune: The Political Gamesmanship Of Opposing Medicaid Expansion
Sen. David Vitter, who has never been mistaken for a liberal, said in a June speech to the Baton Rouge Press Club that if he's elected governor, he wouldn't rule out Medicaid expansion the way that Gov. Bobby Jindal has. This is noteworthy because the Medicaid expansion is a major component of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and Rep. Bill Cassidy is just about basing his entire campaign on Sen. Mary Landrieu's support of that legislation. ... If Jindal had agreed to an expansion of Medicaid, then Cassidy's argument that the Affordable Care Act has been bad for Louisiana would be more difficult to make. If there were 242,000 people who were granted access to medical coverage, Landrieu could rightly claim credit for that. And what self-respecting Republican is going to let a Democrat claim credit for something as monumental as bring health care access to the masses? (Jarvis DeBerry, 10/20).

The Hill: ObamaCare — Why, Sure, It's 'Paid For'
Republican Senate Budget Committee analysts reported last week that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) — a.k.a. ObamaCare — would increase the federal deficit by $131 billion over the period from 2015 to 2024. Drew Hammill, a senior aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), dismissed the report as "complete garbage." Name-calling is no substitute for analysis. The Senate budget analysts' work is fully transparent. Based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data on medical spending and labor market effects, it is quite easy to check out (Robert E. Moffit, 10/20).

The Wall Street Journal: ObamaCare Shunts My Patients Into Medicaid
Thirty years of experience in private medical practice uncovers many ironies. For example, recently several of my patients who had been paying for their own individual health insurance informed me that they were forced off private insurance and placed into Medicaid when they signed up for health care at Healthcare.gov. This unwanted change—built into ObamaCare with the intention of helping patients—has harmed them by taking away their freedom to choose a health-care plan that works best for them (Jeffrey A. Singer, 10/20).

The Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy: A Recent Poll Shows That Most Doctors Give Obamacare Low Grades – But Should This Influence Voters’ Evaluation Of The Program?
A recent survey of doctors by the Physicians Foundation finds that most give low grades to Obamacare. Some 46% of the doctors polled gave Obamacare a grade of "D" or "F" and 29% gave it a "C." Only 25 percent give it an "A" or a "B," including just 4% who gave it the highest grade. It’s possible that some of the doctors who chose C really meant to say that it was at least reasonably good. But in modern America, thanks to grade inflation, a C is generally considered a very bad grade. Thus, it seems likely that a large majority of doctors have strongly negative view of the program (Ilya Somin, 10/20).

Los Angeles Times: What's Behind The Huge Price Jump For Some Generic Drugs?
Why are the prices of some generic drugs so darn high? That's a question many consumers have been asking lately. And now, a pair of prominent congressmen are demanding an answer from the drug industry. In letters to 14 pharmaceutical companies, the congressmen said they're investigating "the recent staggering price increases for generic drugs used to treat everything from common medical conditions to life-threatening illnesses" (David Lazarus, 10/20).

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